‘[100] The questions for every fact-finding are What, When, Where, Who, How and Why? Their significance and difficulty varies from case to case. Some answers will be obvious while other questions can be extremely hard or even unanswerable. Sometimes a question may not need answering at all. At all events the questions come in no set order and each inquiry will suggest its own starting point. It will no doubt find apparently solid ground and progress from there, but conclusions can only ever be provisional until they have been checked against each other so as to arrive at a coherent outcome. At each stage, regard is had to the inherent probabilities and improbabilities surrounding what are inevitably abnormal circumstances.’
“Physical and sexual violence/abuse and violent behaviour • Physical violence, and threats of physical violence; • Physical intimidation e.g. blocking doors, clenching or shaking fists, slamming doors, hitting walls, pretending to hit or swing, throwing objects at or around the victim, displaying weapons or harmful objects, driving dangerously or erratically with the victim in the car; and • Sexual assault, coercion or abuse, and threats of sexual assault. Emotional and psychological abuse • Abuse relating to faith or beliefs; • Verbal abuse; • Constant criticism of the victim’s role as a partner, spouse or parent; • Criticising the victim’s choice of friends and associates; • Intentionally undermining and/or manipulating the victim; and • Posting unwanted messages on the victim’s social media. Controlling behaviours • Controlling or monitoring the victim’s daily activities and behaviour, for example making them account for their time, dictating what they can wear, what and when they can eat, when and where they may sleep, who they meet or talk to, where they may work, restricting access to training/development etc.; • Using digital systems, such as smart devices or social media, to coerce, control, upset and monitor the victim (e.g. restricting and checking phone use, needing to know passwords for accounts, using location tracking on devices, posting of a possibly triggering image); • Controlling and monitoring the victim’s access to their post; • Acts of coercion or force to persuade the victim to do something that they are unwilling to do; • Economic abuse (e.g. coerced debt, controlling spending/bank accounts/investments/mortgages/benefit payments); • Using a victim’s workplace to control them, e.g. denying access to work, dictating where they work, turning up at work; • Making and enforcing rules and regulations that the victim is expected to follow and using punishments to make them comply e.g. making accusations or humiliating a person in public or private for deviating from the rules; • Coercing the victim into carrying out criminal behaviour such as selling drugs or carrying weapons; • Following the victim and/or appearing unexpectedly, e.g. at their place of work or at places where they are meeting friends; • Reproductive coercion, including restricting a victim’s access to birth control; refusing to use a birth control method; forced pregnancy; forcing a victim to get an abortion, to undergo in vitro fertilisation (IVF) or other procedure; or denying access to such a procedure; • Using substances such as alcohol or drugs to control a victim through dependency, or controlling their access to substances; • Using child arrangements and child maintenance to control the victim. Restrictive behaviours • Withholding and/or destroying the victim’s immigration documents, e.g. passports and visas; • Preventing normal leisure activities such as volunteering, joining local clubs and groups, sports teams, civil/charitable activity, etc.; • Preventing the victim from learning a language, improving their existing language skills, such as English if this is not their first language, or making friends outside of their ethnic/ or cultural background; • Refusing to interpret (including British Sign Language, BSL, for deaf victims) on behalf of the victim; • Hindering access to communication, e.g. refusing to make information accessible, denying access to communication support tools, augmentative and alternative communication (AAC), and/or professionals who support communication; • Restricting access to health and social care appointments, or preventing the victim from accessing health or social care, including refusing to allow the victim to attend appointments alone (especially relevant for victims with disabilities or long-term health conditions); • Preventing the victim from taking medication, or accessing medical equipment, or over-medicating them; and • Isolating the victim from family, friends, colleagues and professionals who may be trying to support them, intercepting messages or phone calls. Threatening behaviours • Threats of being placed in an institution against the victim’s will, e.g. care home, supported living facility, mental health facility, etc. (particularly for disabled or elderly victims); • Threats to expose/exposure of sensitive information (e.g. sexual activity, private sexual photos or films,[footnote 18] sexual orientation and/or transgender identity), or making false allegations to family members, friends, work colleagues, community or others, including via photos or the internet; • Making false allegations to statutory agencies (e.g. Police, Children’s Services, Jobcentre, Child Maintenance Services); • Using children to control the victim, e.g. threatening to take the children away, threatening to harm the children; • Using pets to control or coerce a victim, e.g. harming, or threatening to harm or give away pets; • Intimidation and threats of disclosure of health status or an impairment to family, friends, work colleagues and the wider community, particularly where this may carry a stigma in the community; • Threats to the victim, including to their family, friends and pets, that make them feel afraid; • Threats to report a victim to immigration enforcement and/or the police, or threaten to remove the victim to their country of origin; and • Intimidation or threats to go to the police to report alleged offending.”
“during the Covid-19 pandemic, F’s interest and focus shifted toward collecting cacti…and towards gardening activities. This included building a polytunnel in which to grow food. These pursuits occupied a significant amount of his time and attention, without any corresponding increase in his engagement with shared caregiving or domestic responsibility”
“it was not true that F would encourage me, it was something we would do together mutually, the fact that I saw clear benefits for our relationship when doing it is what incentivised me and for a period I did enjoy it and that improved our relationship, and with hindsight I massively regret the whole period”